As we commemorate 20 years of serving our guests and emerging along the way as India’s most preferred airline, do join us on our little flight down memory lane as we relive the past and look ahead towards a bright future.

In our first year of operations, Jet Airways announced the launch of a flight connecting Mumbai and Kolkata, two of India’s largest cities. This was no ordinary launch; Jet Airways entered the City of Joy with great hopes and dreams on June 22, 1994.

Since its inception we have sought to make Jet Airways an airline for the people, committed to its social responsibilities and continuously honouring its commitment to the community—a promise we have kept even 20 years on. As part of this endeavour we pledged one per cent of our revenue made over three months to Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. It was an honour and privilege for Jet Airways to be associated with Mother Teresa and her missionaries who continue to work tirelessly towards caring for the underprivileged. She remains an icon and her blessings have helped us reach our emerald jubilee anniversary today. To date we continue with our charitable contributions through the Magic Box.

Encouraged by the market response and the successful establishment of operations as per meticulous planning in the first year, we began implementing our plans to rapidly expand our network. We added two more Boeing 737 aircraft, increasing our fleet to 6 aircraft and our operations to 39 daily flights to / from 14 destinations. By the end of our 10th year of operations, we had a fleet of 41 aircraft that operated over 250 flights daily. In the following 10 years, we focussed on a measured and gradual expansion consistent with market requirements, and in 2011 reached another milestone when we took delivery of the 100th aircraft into our fleet. Today we operate a fleet of 100 aircraft. With an average fleet age of 5.45 years, Jet Airways has one of the youngest fleet of aircraft in the world.

Our goal was always to widen connectivity within India and overseas and facilitate the movement of people, encouraging both tourism and trade while working in tandem with the development of the economy. Over the last decade, as a result of the exponential growth in air travel, a booming economy, significant investments in infrastructure and continuing liberalisation in the industry, Jet Airways grew and expanded connectivity by foraying also into the low fare leisure segment of the market.

Our first strategic step towards this end was to acquire one of the country’s major private airlines, Air Sahara, which reinforced our fleet strength. It was reincarnated as JetLite, a no-frill value-based carrier. We launched another Economy service called Jet Airways Konnect in 2009, which was consolidated with the erstwhile JetLite under the JetKonnect brand last year, enabling guests to avail of a single superior in-flight product in the full service (Jet Airways) and low-fare (JetKonnect) categories. With JetKonnect, we were able to upgrade the standards of value-based airline services by introducing guests to improved air and ground services, Première cabins on board, and the benefits of JetPrivilege—our award-winning frequent flyer programme.